Time correction

When India won the World Cup recently, one number we often saw was '28'. Yes, different forms of it, like "28 years of wait", "After 28 years", "28 years of pain, hope and disappointment", etc etc. Subtract 1983-the last time India won the cup from 2011-this year and you get that number 28. Now suppose India had the won the last World Cup held in 2007 (ok, I said 'suppose', so dont laugh). Would we have still done a similar subtraction (2011-2007) and said 'After 4 years of wait, we won'? When (and if) India wins against West Indies in the tests next month, we wont say "we won after 5 long years in WI" because the last time we toured WI in 2006, we won!


The same thing holds for several others too. When England won the Ashes in 2005, it was 'For the first time in 18 years Eng won'. I understand where such calculations come from. When the time gap between two events is very long, one simply takes the time difference between the two events. But, in case of sports wins, for example, ideally it must start from the year of the 'first failure after the last win'. In that way, India won the world cup after '24 years of wait', as India failed to retain the cup in 1987. 24 vs 28 years might not be a big difference, but I find this as an example where one has to look beyond what one is repeatedly told, to get the real truth.